The government of Kenya on Thursday, February 10, denied claims that it has encroached South Sudan’s territory arguing that it respects the boundaries of its neighbors.

This was after it emerged that South Sudan summoned Kenya’s envoy to Juba, Samuel Nandwa, to protest an alleged encroachment on its territory.

Kenya's Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary, Dr Alfred Mutua, on Thursday told the Nation that Juba had not officially raised the matter with Nairobi hence scanty information on the alleged encroachment.

ALSO READ: Kenya, South Sudan in border dispute

“South Sudan has not communicated to us officially on the matter, therefore, I cannot comment on the issue sufficiently,” Dr Mutua is quoted.

As reported, Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary, Dr Korir Sing’oei, said his country had not encroached on the territory of South Sudan noting that boundary delimitation is currently ongoing under African Union.

“Kenya respects the territorial integrity of all her neighbors and has not encroached on any of their territories. A boundary delimitation process of all borders under the AU is ongoing and is being conducted consultatively and jointly with our neighbors,” said Dr Sing’oei.

“Our Kenya National Boundaries Office (Kenao) is in charge of this process.”

A map of the Ilemi Triangle showing 1938 "red line" or "Wakefield Line", 1947 "blue line" and Sudan's 1950 patrol line (green). 

Juba claims that Kenya has “illegally” taken 42 points of its borderline at Nadapal, a settlement on a key crossing point and trade route between the two countries.

South Sudan’s Deputy Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation minister, Deng Dau Deng, said Kenya and Uganda are claiming part of the South Sudan borderline, pointing out that Juba will not cede an inch of the territory.

Deng had said that Juba reported Kenya and Uganda to the African Union over the alleged border encroachment.

Inside the disputed Elemi Triangle

South Sudan and Kenya have a portion of their border, it is reported, largely undetermined at the Ilemi (also called Elemi) Triangle, a sparsely populated area of about 14,000 square kilometres.

The Ilemi Triangle region is at the north-western corner of Lake Turkana, in northern Kenya and on the fringe of southern South Sudan. It is believed to be rich in oil.

In this region, and beyond, pastoral communities have historically engaged in raids on livestock. In the past they used traditional weapons but since the nineteenth century onwards the use of firearms has been common.

In 2012, Tullow Oil, a multinational oil and gas exploration company, discovered oil in the north of Turkana, a Kenyan county.

According to Kenyan media reports, the name Ilemi is believed to be from a famous chief of the Anuak, a community on South Sudan’s boundary with Ethiopia. The triangle was named in honour of chief Ilemi Akwon.

It is home to the Turkana, Didinga, Toposa, Inyangatom and Dassanach communities. These communities are from Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan, but they traditionally migrate to the triangle in search of pasture for their animals.

The Turkana are found in South Sudan and Turkana County, while the Didinga are in South Sudan and north eastern Uganda. The Toposa are an ethnic group in South Sudan. The Nyangatom are Nilotic agro-pastoralists inhabiting the border of southwestern Ethiopia, southeastern South Sudan, and the Ilemi Triangle. The Daasanach inhabit parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Sudan.

When the Kenyan Government published a new atlas including part of the disputed Ilemi Triangle within its territory, in 1986, the result was a protest from Khartoum. At the time, there was only one Sudan – before South Sudan formally seceded from Sudan on July 9, 2011.

According to reports, in 1986, the Sudanese Government [Khartoum] believed that the then Sudan People’s Liberation Movement rebels had traded the lands in the Ilemi Triangle with Kenya.

According to reports, the dispute arose from a 1914 treaty in which a straight parallel line was used to divide territories that were part of the British Empire. But, it is noted, the Turkana nomadic herders, among others, continued to move to and from the border freely in search for water and pasture for their animals.

The perceived economic marginality of the land as well as decades of Sudanese conflicts are two factors that could have delayed the resolution of the dispute. The New Times

Reports now emerge that United Nations peacekeepers killed eight civilians during an attack on their supply convoy in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the evening of Tuesday, February 7.

As reported, the UN troops were firing “warning shots”, which also wounded 28 people in the violence on Tuesday. Initial reports earlier indicated that three civilians were killed and a dozen others injured following an incident where four peacekeepers’ trucks were violently attacked while returning from a resupply mission north of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.

The UN mission had earlier reported that three people died when the peacekeepers, accompanied by Congolese soldiers, “tried to protect the convoy”.

But Lt. Gen. Constant Ndima, the governor’s spokesperson, on Wednesday, said: “The MONUSCO soldiers in charge of security fired warning shots, which unfortunately caused the death of eight of our compatriots among the displaced and 28 wounded.”

ALSO READ: Protests against EAC regional force proves DR Congo opposed to peace – analysts

The incident followed protests in Goma, the capital of North Kivu, on Monday and Tuesday, against the East African regional force deployed there in November 2022 to support the regional efforts to restore peace in eastern DR Congo.

There have been various protests, in the past, against the presence of the UN mission in the country.

The Congolese accuse MONUSCO, one of the largest and most expensive – with an annual budget of over $1 billion – UN missions in the world which has been in the country since 1999 and fields about 20,000 peacekeepers, of failing to deal with the dozens of armed groups operating in the east of their country.

Of late, protestors, emboldened by their political and military leaders, are also increasingly threatening the regional force to leave the country if it does not fight the M23 rebels.

ALSO READ: Leaked footage, violence raise fresh questions over Kinshasa's intentions

Soon after the February 4, extra-ordinary EAC Summit of Heads of State concluded, in Bujumbura, Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi was captured on video confronting the commander of the regional force, Gen. Jeff Nyagah, in the presence of the Kenyan officer’s Commander in Chief, President William Ruto.

A visibly threatening Tshisekedi told Gen. Nyagah not to favor the M23.

Tshisekedi told Gen. Nyagah to fight the rebels or risk the wrath of the Congolese population. 

“Don’t favour the M23! It would be a shame if the [angry] population attacked you. You came to help us to solve a problem, not to be part of it. Pay attention to this, communicate to the population,” Tshisekedi told the Kenyan General.

ALSO READ: Nine key resolutions from EAC leaders’ Summit on DR Congo crisis

The protestors also blocked roads in Goma and vandalised shops and churches belonging to members of the Congolese Tutsi community which has been, for long, victims of endless hate speech and ethnic violence.

The protests also followed the EAC Summit of Heads of State in Bujumbura, which supported dialogue and the political processes, something Kinshasa is totally against.

Eastern DR Congo is home to more than 130 local and foreign armed groups that pose a serious threat to security and peace in the region but Kinshasa only pays more attention to Congolese rebel group, M23. The three foreign armed groups wreaking havoc in DR Congo are FDLR, a genocidal militia force that was formed by remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, Uganda’s ADF, and the Résistance pour un État de droit, or RED-Tabara, from Burundi. The New Times